MOBILE, Alabama -- Mobile County’s plan to improve an urban loop around the city of Mobile took another step forward Monday as the County Commission opened bids to widen Schillinger Road.

However, construction can’t begin until the Mobile County Water, Sewer and Fire Protection Authority moves one of its waterlines that runs in the right of way, said Bryan Kegley, assistant county engineer.

The utility has already bid the estimated $400,000 project but hasn’t awarded it to a contractor because it doesn’t have enough money to pay for it right now, Kegley said.

A representative of the utility did not return calls for comment Monday.

The loop project has been under way for years, and several sections of road have already been widened or, in the case of a small section south of Interstate 10, newly created. When it’s complete, it will create an arc around Mobile via Alabama 158 to the north, Schillinger Road to the west and Theodore Dawes Road to the south.

The majority of the loop will be four or five lanes wide.

The section of Schillinger Road that was opened for bid Monday runs from Old Pascagoula Road to Three Notch Road. The project, expected to cost about $5 million, is one of five sections of Schillinger that remain to be widened, Kegley said.

The southern stretch, which includes the latest project to be bid, runs from Old Pascagoula to Cottage Hill Road. The remaining two phases in that corridor will cost about $10 million to $12 million each and will be funded through the county’s Pay-As-You-Go program, Kegley said. They should be finished sometime in 2015, he said.

A second corridor of future widening on Schillinger runs from Lott Road to Howell’s Ferry Road. Plans for those widening projects are still in the engineering phase, Kegley said.

"When those are finished, you’ll have yourself a completed urban loop," Kegley said.

Although it will provide additional lanes for those trying to skirt Mobile’s western edge, motorists should still expect frequent stops. Only the Alabama 158 section of the loop is a limited access highway.

As Schillinger is widened, it will draw more and more cars, which will bring more development, Kegley said. Those developers will then petition the county for stoplights, he said.

Limited access highways require much more right of way than traditional curb-and-gutter streets, Kegley said.

By the time the widening of Schillinger Road began, large sections of it were already developed. Acquiring the right of way needed to make it a limited access road would have been prohibitively expensive, he said. 